i want to know if you can see the stars

well, it's pretty amazing here. getting here was rough though. basically i missed my plane because united is very unorganized. but i don't want to relive that, so on to happier things.

my plane landed monday around 7pm. carol, heather, and lauren all came to welcome me at the airport! we went grocery shopping then out to dinner at this delicious mexican restaurant in crested butte. i had a really good tofu. then we drove to RMBL (rocky mountain biological laboratory) and dropped me at my cabin. there i met two of my roommates, tina and lizzie. they were both really sweet. our fourth roommate, eleanora, was out watching a movie. she and i are sharing the loft. she's really sweet too. and she's from italy, so every time i hear her talk i think of jen :) they're funny. they also remind me of my time at stanford with alex because they like to talk about boy drama :P

but of course, they're also serious scientists. lizzie is my age, a junior at michigan. she's doing something with birds. tina and eleanora are masters students at ucla studying marmots.

speaking of marmots, i saw some awesome wildlife yesterday! i saw 6 marmot babies hiding under my lab. i also saw a mother marmot and at least one of her pups by the river. when i woke up i stepped outside to see 3 fox pups playing between my cabin and the next. they are very playful and don't seem to mind the people walking around them and taking pictures. everyone here is so respectful and awed by the wildlife - it's refreshing.

last night i was really homesick. it's frustrating that my internet hasn't been working well and i have no cell phone. i think i'm going to use the lab phone to call home today because i really want to talk to my family. my roommates are nice, but they've all been here together for a while now so i just don't know them as well as they know each other. i'm getting closer to heather and lauren, carol's RAs, which is neat. plus heather and i can share memories from hopkins and that is comforting since it's familiar. and i thought my kitchen there was small and the bathroom was dirty! i guess i didn't realize how nice it was to have clean dishes and an indoor toilet. and i'm in one of the nicer cabins here :P this is camping though, and it's worth it for the wilderness. i don't have my camera cord right now, but as soon as i get it i will post pictures online, internet willing.

i wrote the above yesterday in anticipation of being able to post when the internet came back. here's what i did today:

since ward won't be here till next thursday, i tagged along with carol's group. we started out with a hike into their butterfly sites. we crossed a river to get to a beautiful meadow with a beaver-damed lake. we took pictures of our lovely crew with our huge butterfly nets. the view of our little town here was amazing. we kept going up till we saw the plants we were looking for. at each plant we stopped to count the number of larva we could find munching the leaves. we found 66 caterpillars, and one pupa (cocoon). it was so beautiful up there! my critters live at an even higher altitude, so i'm sure it will look somewhat different. i can't wait to explore it!

i'll try to post often but the internet here is pretty limited. basically it only works for me when no one else is using it (dinnertime).